Episode 21: Star Trek Fleet Captains, Character Advancement in RPGs and Board Games that Fired Other Board Games

In episode 21, the founders break out Star Trek: Fleet Captains and brush the cobwebs off from sitting on Chris' shelf to bring you a walk-through and review. Then Tony scours the net to bring you this weeks gaming news. We follow that up with a discussion on games that fired other games, except Tony who brings his own unique perspective to the discussion. Then we conclude the episode with a discussion on reward systems in tabletop role playing games.

Episode Timeline

Star Trek: Fleet Captains Walk-through: 00:25

Star Trek: Fleet Captains Review: 00:36

Gaming News with Tony Topper: 00:50

Reward Systems in Tabletop RPG's: 01:26

Games that Fired other Games: 01:56

Opening Banter Topics:

The founders attended a board game party and played a ton of games.

Chris won a game of Wiz-War so fast one of his opponents moved twice and didn't cast a single spell.

Jamie won a game of Thurn and Taxis because he didn't tell Chris the rules.

Brian played a game of Betrayal and the cultists won, summoning their demon god who then destroyed the world. Sorry =(

The founders got in a game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion, which spiced things up a bit. Chris won using a leader that gave him points for yellow Trade cards.

The MMA Board Game has competition! Hobags!

Chris and Jamie are going to play in a Mouse Guard game with Rodney Smith of Watch It Played this weekend! We'll update you on what they think of remote gaming and Mouse Guard next episode!

Brian got a play in of Thunderstone Advance and realized he was playing one phase incorrectly. Even as such, he still loves the game and looks forward to more plays.

At the end of the Banter, we take a moment to address a listener feedback regarding the Panic Station Challenge. We're more than interested in starting a dialogue with listeners regarding the show. Please feel free to contact us if you have something to say regarding our content.

Star Trek: Fleet Captains

In Star Trek: Fleet Captains each player begins play with a fleet of ships and starts at opposite ends of an unexplored sector of space. This sector of space is represented by hexegonal cards (which are shuffled before play and placed face-down in a pre-determined pattern). As each ship progresses through the sector, you turn the tiles face up, revealing what is in that part of the sector (a Class-M planet, a Class-J Nebula, empty space, etc...). Hopefully you will discover and acquire resources while simultaneously denying them to your opponent(s). When conflict inevitably breaks out, you and your opponent(s) will battle it out for sector supremacy. Last fleet standing wins the sector for their respective faction.

Gaming News with Tony Topper

Product Announcements / Releases

Eclipse: Rise of the Ancients by Asmodee is expected in October, which happens to coincide with the reprint release of Eclipse. While a lot of people are probably still chomping at the bit to get their hands on the reprint, the expansion includes 3 more player boards. It also adds rare technologies, alliances, ancient homeworlds, development, and warp portals.

Dungeon Rise has been revealed completely! Check out these amazing TerraClips, with 3 different packs that can be purchased for individual use or together to create some fantastic wargaming or tabletop settings. Dungeon Essentials, Prison of the Forsaken, and Vaults of Ruin are all priced at $49 MSRP each, which makes for an impressive set of terrain which is an exceptional buy in comparison to alternatives. For those of you who enjoy tabletop role-playing games or war games this is definitely something you should check out!

The second preview for Dungeon Command is available! Wizards of the Coast also released the entire rulebook. Several of the cards are also available for preview, where one of the designers, Peter Lee, explains creature cards. This years D&D Game Day on July 21st will celebrate Dungeon Command.

Apple is bringing the Apple Game Center to the Mac. You can get iOS games on your desktop. This will be their version of Steam, albeit without the integration of iTunes to also purchase those games, which will track achievements and allow players to connect with friends.

Advance order is now available for the new rulebook for Warhammer 40k! It is hardbound and weighs in at a whopping $75 MSRP. This one in particular burns Jamie up. With the advanced order that's available you can also pick up the Psychic Powers cards for $13.25, and fancy blast templates for $20. They also have Collector's Edition and Gamer's Edition available in the ~$125 range. The hardbound rulebook is 452 full color pages. For those of you who are fans of Games Workshop, we pity your wallet but take solace in the fact that you'll love this.

Facebook is jumping on the bandwagon with their game distribution with the Facebook App Center. Brian can't wait for more people to spam him with games they're playing on Facebook. Thus far, the selection of games isn't impressive. Here's to hoping they actually implement euro and ameritrash games!

Gamers everywhere rejoice as La Havre comes out for iOS! Okay, maybe not everywhere, but several founders do. For $4.99 it's an excellent buy. The lower level AI isn't too swift though, as Jamie indicated that he ended a game where it had 15 loans with an income of 6. He shares that it has an excellent feature where you can see what the recommended action is at any point and it's a great way to improve on strategies.

Hacienda HD is now available for iPad. Chris picked this up as it was marketed as a good family game on the iPad. The way the game plays out is on the outer rim of the board is the terrain for sale. You buy those various terrain locations and then move your herds of animals to those locations. Priced at $5.99 he thought this was an excellent buy.

7 Wonders Companion prices out at $1.99. It is not the game of 7 Wonders, but a companion that includes a variety of tools, including a scorer and a new wonder.

Duels of the Planewalker 2013 is now available on XBLA, Steam, iPad, and PSN. This is a Magic the Gathering game where you can play against AI opponents or make micro-purchases to customize your decks. Tony was rather impressed by the challenges, which give you a particular situation and the goal is to complete a particular objective in a set amount of time.

Chris interjects at the end of the news to share another iOS game called New World Colony, a turn based game where you upgrade colonies. He discovered this great game on ipadboardgames.org which has a great library of rated iPad games as well as news about upcoming releases. This one costs $1.99 and is available for both iPhone and iPad.

And finally, Jamie interjects to share Greed Corp. A turn based strategy game where the players consume resources from the land, resulting in the land collapsing. The ultimate goal is to control each map entirely and eliminate your opponents. This is one that was out previously on Steam for PC and is a personal favorite of his. Another game that comes in at $1.99 but is only available for the iPad.

Crowd Funding Projects Ending Soon (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Ulule.com)Among the Stars is a project on IndieGoGo. In a universe torn by war on the eve of the final battle, a fleet of unknown ships appear and decimate the fleets of the races vying for survival. After mere minutes, the unknown species some call the Makers vanish back into the depths of space. In this sci-fi themed game, players take on the role of those destroyed civilizations with one mission in mind: the construction of space stations meant to cultivate trade, rebuild fleets, promote friendly relations with their new found allies against a common enemy, and serve as a last line of defense if the Makers return. It's a sci-fi themed game that looks to have game-play similar to 7 Wonders. The players draft during four rounds, with the goal being to combine location cards to build the most efficient space station. Skillful combination of locations result in garnering bonus victory points. The funding has been met on Among the Stars and contributions are open until July 31st.

Sid Saxon Signature Series: Sleuth, Venture, and Monad now available on Kickstarter. Griffon Games is heading up a project to reprint games by this prolific designer. This is the first in the series though they hope to offer more of his games in future projects. Sid Saxon is most commonly known as the designer of Acquire but he's created hundreds of games. They plan on modernizing the art while paying homage to the classic designs. The project has been funded and is accepting contributions until July 17th with an estimated delivery date of October. For a $20 contribution you can choose which of the three games you want. A higher contribution allows you to pick up copies of the other games.

Reward Systems in RPG's

An article started circulating in the Diablo 3 gaming world explaining why Diablo 2 was more addicting. Feel free to check it out here: Alex Curelea's Dev Log. With that in mind, we decide to have a discussion about tabletop RPG's and the reward systems. We delve into what motivates each of us playing tabletop games. We focus heavily on level systems and item rewards but also touch on things such as character options, social recognition, and power in an attempt to pin down how to make a game that sates the needs of all the players. In the end, we decide that in order to ensure everyone has a fun time that each game Brian will level, Chris will get another special item such as Needle from Game of Thrones, Tony wants crazy psychic powers, and Jamie just wants another group to run a game for.

Games that Fired other Games

Jamie stumbled upon a geek list on Board Game Geek and he decided to steal it to use as a topic for our discussion. The geek list was Games that Fired Other Games. Without further adieu our lists! Please feel free to disregard Tony's list or comment on how outrageous it is.
Chris

Our 2015 Fundraiser!

If you would like to donate to the show, please head over to our Patreon fundraiser page! The more money we get the more shows you'll get! Thanks so much to all of your support.

Our Sponsors

The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast couldn't be happier to be sponsored by a great publisher and closer personal friend Stephen Buonocore of Stronghold Games. Please take some time to check out their website at StrongholdGames.com.

The Dice Tower Network

The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast is proud to be a member of the Dice Tower Network. For more great podcasts, check out

About The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast

Five old friends with a love of gaming come together to produce a bi-weekly podcast about gaming of all kinds: board games, card games, miniatures wargames, role-playing games and much more. In each episode you can expect board game reviews, gaming industry news and roundtable discussions. The founders, Jamie, Tony, Brian, Steve and Chris, each have different tastes in gaming so expect a wide variety of viewpoints. Read More about the Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast now...

Industry Support

The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast reaches a great deal of listeners and is continually growing with each new episode. Providing review copies of games is a great way for game publishers to showcase their products and also helps us cover a wide variety of games. If you are interested in sending review copies to the show, please send to:

Attn: James Keagy
4 Kent Road, Suite 200
York, PA 17403

Thank you for your support.

Contact the Founders

Have questions, comments for suggestions? Use the following email addresses to get in touch with the founders